Wednesday, 1 October 2008
What did James read
I also like to read if i have to time. My preference is very broad from novel, business related book to applied Buddhist book. Since i took AEP class, i don't have much time to finished any new books. However, i try to read news in website everyday. the book i finished lately is a speech of buddhadassa pikku about the harmony of Christian and Buddhist's teaching in each religion canon. In Buddhadass view, those two believes are very quite similar if you infer the meaning from Bible instead of interprete word by word. Even, the distintive characteristics of buddhism , usually thought as the unique only in Buddhism such as non-self, can also be infered from Bibel. Also, the story in Genesis, which people in current period believe that it is nothing but just a fairly tales, can infer to the complicate Buddhist dharmma. However, because i've never read Bible more than one page ,i'm not sure that the christian people shall agree with this Buddhadassa's opinion.
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I fail in finding the website that have those speech mentioned above in English. I found only the conclusion from readers
ReplyDeleteChristianity & Buddhism
Dear reader,
A new rubriek
In some of my most recent logs I remarked that God, Dhamma and Tao are the same thing. I think it is time to explain myself. To start with an introductory log on Buddhism and Christianity.
This log is the first in a new 'rubriek', so more text on this subjects will follow. The texts about Christianity and Buddhism are to illustrate further explain Buddhism, to get a deeper understanding of the similarities between both religions and also for my personal good. As I wrote several times before, my view of Christianity is a rather negative one. The loving and compassionate way that many Buddhists talk about Christians however, and the general focus on compassion with your fellow humans (whatever religion, man or woman, black or white, friend or enemy) in Buddhism, have opened my eyes. They made me see that it is great to have 'discovered' Buddhism, but if I go around the world talking how much 'better' Buddhism is than Christianity, I do just the same as I what I accuse many Christians from doing. And of course, defining yourself by what you love brings happiness, while defining yourself by what you hate does not.
Excuses to those Christians that read my log and find me negative about their religion. Understanding and love for what you most of your live hated does not come overnight. But I am doing my best. My best to understand and forgive. For my own good.
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
The insight is not mine. It is what I learned from reading a book (1) from one of Thailand's most famous Buddhists Buddhadasa (servant of Buddha), founder of the monastery of Suan Mokkh in Southern Thailand. He was born in 1906 and this year there are many activities in Thailand to celebrate this anniversary. He died recently (I don't know the year).
Buddhadasa had three main objectives in his life and work:
1. Help people to discover and go back to the heart of their religion
2. Help people to gain understanding of other religions
3. Unite all genuine religious people in order to work together to free humanity by destroying selfishness and overcoming materialism
The heart of Buddhism
Buddhadasa who wrote hundreds of books and received 5 doctorary honorates from Thai universities, has worked and studied hard to establish and explain the correct and essential principles of original Buddhism, by extensive research of the original Pali texts, especially of the Buddha's discourses. This was then followed, in true Buddhist way, by personal experiment and practice with these teachings. He studied all different schools of Buddhism and got a deep insight in what is 'original' Buddhism and which are added cultural rituals and beliefs that have little or nothing to do with what the Buddha taught. An example is the belief in spirits that almost all Thai Buddhists have as I mentioned in my log about Thai Buddhism.
In Buddhism we find the heart of the religion in the Buddha's teachings and the example the Buddha set in his life. The original teachings, which have been written down 2000 years ago after very organised and conscientious oral passing [mondelinge overlevering] of these teachings by a very large group of Buddhist Monks in the centuries before, are considered very reliable. But these teachings are only 5% of all Buddhists texts. There is no need to completely discard these texts as they can be wise and usefull but they should only be read with the original principles of Buddhism in mind. When they are in conflict, the Buddha's teachings should be taken as the 'true Buddhist' teachings. For genuine Buddhist practitioners, these problems should not arise anyway as the teachings can be 'tested' by personal experience. Fortunately, unlike other religions, different Buddhist schools have never been at war with each other, since (that part of the teachings must have been understood) the Buddha emphasised that it is about 'finding out for yourself', not about simply believing the written word. And somehow, compassion with those who think differently, has been put in practice much more by Buddhists than by Christians.
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu - the heart of religions
Seeing how corrupted many schools of Buddhism were and how little many Buddhists understood of their own religion, he realised that this is not different with other religions and he then must have come up with the hyphotesis that most of the wars between religions stem from a lack of understanding among the practisioners of these religions. You only have to see the very bloody history (and present I would add) of Christianity to see that something went very wrong if "Thou should not kill" is the most important of all ten commandments.
The same for Islamic fundamentalists who kill for Allah. I don't know what they are fundamental in, but when it comes to the funadamentals of Islam, I don't think they got the point.
The heart of Christianity
So how then, can we discover the heart of Christianity? I would say the same as with any religion. Look at what is the most original and reliable information available.
While Buddhist teachings have come to us through the Buddha, Christianity, and (as Christians say) the word of God, has been passed to us via the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. So if we want to know what the essential principles of Christianity are, Jesus' life and teachings is where we should look. As for many of the parts of the bible of which the source (who wrote it?) is uncertain, defending each letter with the sword as 'God's word' as some radical Christians do and have done does then not really make sense.
Buddhadasa somewhere remarks that if Jesus had read the old testament, he would have forbidden his followers to read it. I would wholeheartedly agree with that, since ideas such as 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' are not in line with the higher teachings of mercy and 'love your neighbour' as expressed in 'turning the other cheek'. One has only to look for the never ending war between Israel and the Palestinians, that the Israeli concept of revenge and retalliation (old-testamental thinking) only leads to a never ending vicious cycle of more hatred, death and violence.
Buddha, Christ, Mohammed brought Buddhism, Christianity and Islam to this world. It is their words and deeds, as far as we know about them, that we should use if we want to understand what these religions are about.
Religious language
One of the difficulties when understanding religious text is that they are not written in 'normal' everyday language, or what Buddhadasa calls 'worldly language'. Religious text are written in religious language. This kind of language needs interpretation and thus can be misinterpreted by people with insufficient understanding, a lack of clarity of mind or a strong attachment to a certain belief that is not based on deeper insight or
In his books, Buddhadasa doesn't stop explaining what different words in religious language mean. Let's take the example of the words 'die' and 'rebirth' in some Christian texts.
In Genesis 2/17 God forbids Adam to eat the fruit of the tree saying:"...for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." Die here does not mean physical death (Adam ate the apple and did not die), but spiritual death, or in this case the original sin, the knowledge of duality that is responsible for all suffering.
Then in John 3/3 it says: "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Here born anew or rebirth is again a spiritual rebirth, not a physical one.
The same is true for Buddhism were rebirth shouldn't taken as a physical rebirth and with many, many other words. Thus a deep understanding of this religious language is needed if we want to understand religious texts.
Keep your religion
Buddhadasa makes the remark that the ignorance of Dhamma language is what makes people abandon their religion and embrace another. He does not encourage that. My experience with Buddhists - and that is one of the things I like about Buddhism - is that, in contrast with many Christians, they never try to convert you to their religion. They don't tell you that their religion is better. They don't even ask what religion you have as you are for them just a fellow human and treated as such: with respect. Buddhadasa goes one step further in this. If a Christian came up to him saying he wanted to convert to Buddhism he strongly discouraged him as Buddhadasa understood that in the heart all religions share the same basic principles.
The problem is, according to Buddhadasa, that we lach the knowledge, both of our own and of other religions and thus fail to see this. Which in the worst case leads us to fight other religions.
Uniting genuine religious people
The third 'life objective' of Buddhadasa was to unite all 'genuine religious people' to free humanity from selfishness and materialism. Buddhism teaches that selfishness in combination with ignorance, is the root problem of all evil. There is little to argue against that. If all we care about is our own interests we don't end up with a happy, loving and giving world.
Unfortunately our world is, more than by anything else, ruled by selfishness. So there is indeed a lot of work to do.
So who are the 'genuine religious people' that have to rid the world of these evils? I have no text from Buddhadasa about this, but I do have my own ideas. They are not necessarily those people that go to church, temple or mosque every week, nor those that believe in God or Allah,
but those that honour and practice universal morals of goodness and spend time to train themselves to become better people. They are not those fundamentalist blind believers that are fighting a Holy war nor those in America's Mid West that question nothing in their belief (whether that is in God or in a president that goes around bombing the world). No they are genuine people that are more interested to make a positive difference in this world than to be right. Whether they form part of an 'organised religion' is not the most important issue.
I always answered to people who ask me "Do you believe in god?", "I don't, but if he does exist I am not worried. I have no doubt that if there is a Heaven and a Hell, I will go to Heaven as my intention has always be to make the world a better place."
The point I am trying to make is: you may be calling yourself a Christian or Buddhist or whatever, but what matters is not if you believe and are present during the ceremonies and rituals, what matters is your behaviour in your every day life. Do you act according to the essential principles of your religion or of universal goodness, or are you calling yourself religious while only pursuing your own selfish interests?
And why does it not matter whether I believe in God? It is like believing in the law of gravity. If I jump down a cliff, whether I belief in gravity or not does not matter. In either case I fall down. What does matter though is whether or not I behave in accordance with the laws or nature or, in Christian words, the laws of God.
Enough for this first log on this topic. Love to you (whatever your religion),
Jeroen
(1) Bhikkhu Buddhadasa Indapanno, Christianity and Buddhism, Sinclaire Thompson Memorial Lecture
http://jeroensjourney.punt.nl/index.php?r=1&id=280058&tbl_archief=0
This is Thai version but not complete just first part.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.buddhadasa.com/BudChrist/Beunderstand1.html
Wow, it is very very interesting. In my unversity which is mission school my double major is theology(also I have another major in sociology). I am interested in religion maybe because I am a Christian. In Korea, most christians go to church every week, belive God and they think that there is no God in other religions, so they insist that christians have to be missionary for other people's salvation.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I couldn't find why I have to do it because of Jesus, so sometimes I argued with friends and priest. I really agreed with buddhadassa pikku saying, "if Jesus had read the old testament, he would have forbidden his followers to read it". Let's imagine this situation. If Jesus visit Bankok and meet a monk, then what would Jesus say to monk? Like most priest saying, jesus might become a missionary and say to him "follow me, and you will get a salvation"?? I don't think so! In the bible, jesus was mercy and would like to embrace all people. I was very impressed on buddhadassa pikku saying. He know about christionity better than real christions. I also think that real christions didn't know their religion well.
It is really good posting! I would like to read his book and when I come back to my university and study theology, I would like to use for reference.
Thank you, James^^